Free Thinker

“I love a free thinker,
because only a free thinker,
is totally free to love without constraint.”

Quote inspired by: Sophie Scholl

“Powerful states, as well as their inhabitants, tend to be congenital conservatives when it comes to their own futures. The “comfort cult,” as he called it—the tendency in seemingly stable societies to believe “that ‘Reason will prevail’ and that ‘Everything will be all right’”—is seductive. As a result, when a terminal crisis comes, it is likely to be unexpected, confusing, and catastrophic, with the causes so seemingly trivial, the consequences so easily reparable if political leaders would only do the right thing, that no one can quite believe it has come to this.” Excerpt from How great powers fall apart – from the inside

“Governments are good at recognizing the faults in other places and times, but they are terrible judges of the injustices built into their own foundations. If a country could sail the seas unrivaled and put humans into outer space, it had little incentive to look inward at what was rotten at the core. “The regime considers itself the acme of perfection and therefore has no wish to change its ways either of its own free will or, still less, by making concessions to anyone or anything.”
Countries decay only in retrospect. Powerful states, as well as their inhabitants, tend to be congenital conservatives when it comes to their own futures. The “comfort cult,” as Andrei Amalrik called it—the tendency in seemingly stable societies to believe “that ‘Reason will prevail’ and that ‘Everything will be all right’”—is seductive. As a result, when a terminal crisis comes, it is likely to be unexpected, confusing, and catastrophic, with the causes so seemingly trivial, the consequences so easily reparable if political leaders would only do the right thing, that no one can quite believe it has come to this.
“This isolation has created for all—from the bureaucratic elite to the lowest social levels—an almost surrealistic picture of the world and of their place in it”, “Yet the longer this state of affairs helps to perpetuate the status quo, the more rapid and decisive will be its collapse when confrontation with reality becomes inevitable.”
Where is the breaking point? How long can a political system seek to remake itself before triggering one of two reactions—a devastating backlash from those most threatened by change or a realization by the change makers that their goals can no longer be realized within the institutions and ideologies of the present order?” Excerpts from: How a Great Power Falls Apart, Decline Is Invisible From the Inside

Totalitarianism definition: “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” By: Benito Mussolin